again the city comes crashing down
by MorteSangriz
Summary: "No human is infallible to apathy after all, not even him. Not even he who dreamed of changing the world as a hero, who burned and soared with this frail hope on wings of wax that fell away when the heat got too much to bear- he still had the burn scars to show that he held on as long as he could- after society turned a blind eye to his strife."


_**A/N: So like I really shouldn't be writing something else but I saw this wonderful piece of art on Tumblr by Lanternist and just had to. So here's a Villain!Izuku story that I'll probably think about more than I should.**_

 _ **You can look at the art here: (**_ ** _lanternist . tumblr post / 180483808064 / villain-deku-au-except-instead-of-stabbing-people )_**

* * *

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan," he murmurs soothingly, fingers flying over the keyboard and entering the information being given to him into the computer, "The police will be there soon, okay? For now, just listen to what your Kaa-san told you and keep the door to your room locked."

"Okay," he hears her sob again and through his headset, he hears the shouting grow louder, though still not enough for him to make out the individual words, "I'm scared. What if he hurts her?"

"The police are on their way, remember? They'll do their best to make sure no one gets hurt. It's okay to be scared, Sakura-chan. I get scared sometimes too and when I do, I just breathe until I feel a little better. Can you do that with me Sakura-chan, breathe in slowly? Good job, now slowly breathe out."

"I think I see the police lights," she whispers, sniffling wetly, "I hear them coming inside."

"You're really brave Sakura-chan. Now just stay on the line until they tell you to open the door okay?"

It takes only a few minutes before he hears a cautious knock through the phone, with the police making sure that Sakura is unharmed. She whispers a quiet _thank you_ into the phone before she hangs up and goes off to, presumably, open the bedroom door for the police.

Izuku stares at the computer screen blankly for a second. The cursor of his mouse hovers over the submit button for this latest call's record, and after a moment of sitting, with the sound of phones ringing filling the room around him- clicks it with a quiet sigh.

He leans back against his office chair and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hands.

It's always tough to hear children sound so scared. Especially in their home, the place where they should be the safest from the dangers of the outside world. As unpleasant as it is to think, Sakura-chan is one of the luckier ones that were saved before they were harmed.

He's dealt with far too many occasions in which the police arrives too late. Times in which, he's unable to do anything but listen in mute horror as a child begs for their life in shrill terror, as doors are broken down and screams fall silent unnaturally quick.

The times he's had to listen to something like that press down on him. The guilt is thick and viscous and clings to the lining of his skin even after he submits reports and clocks out for the day. (Sometimes he can hear them asking for him to save them in the silence of his bedroom.)

Although, he finds that he can't muster up that same kind of guilt when it comes to failing adults.

They're not like children, innocent- for the most part, at least, enough for him to put an effort into making sure they're alright. If he was to receive a call from a child he knew was like the ones that haunted his youth, he's sure that his reaction would be different, that coldness would crawl out of him and the darkness he's come to feel festering inside him would make him do something that once upon a time he would have never dared consider.

(But time has changed him, the years have taken their toll on his soul and now, he finds that he can't feel much of anything anymore.

No human is infallible to apathy after all, not even him.

Not even he who dreamed of changing the world as a hero, who burned and soared with this frail hope on wings of wax that fell away when the heat got too much to bear- _he still had the burn scars to show that he held on for as long as he could_ \- after society turned a blind eye to his strife.)

He glances at the corner of his computer, watching another minute tick by. A minute closer to when he's able to leave this place of ringing phones and desperate voices and people that he feels he no longer understands. He sighs, tapping the wood of his desk with his fingers.

Maybe he should visit Kaa-san today, Izuku muses, reaching for a pen from the cat-shaped mug on his desk and throwing it in the air- catching it between two fingers. It's hard for him to dwell on the dark things- on the deprived, violent, and _ugly_ aspect of society that the hero system doesn't do anything to fix- when he's near his mother, watching her bustle around the house, excitedly telling him about the new hobbies she's tried taking up recently.

While she doesn't stress as much for his well being now that he no longer talks of pursuing a career in hero-work, he knows his mother still worries. It's been at least two weeks since he visited and his job does nothing for his anxiety of leaving his mother alone. He'll shoot her a text after work to see if she's home. That way he can see if he can stop by and see how she's been doing first-hand.

"Hey, Mochizuki-san," he calls, tossing the pen into the air and pushing back his chair from its place near his desk to peek at his co-worker over the edge of her cubicle. Mochizuki-san is a woman with a physically-altering quirk, one that affects her general appearance but doesn't have any other abilities besides making her look like a giant, permanently sour flower.

She gives him a _look_ and he blinks innocently back, fully aware that she's on her break and just keeps the headset on so that Komori-san from scheduling doesn't pester her. She raises her brow, sighing in resignation, the flower petals on her head rustling as she moves the headset down to her neck. "What do you want, Midoriya-san? I'm kinda busy here."

"No, you're not," He says and tilts his head, smiling, "You're playing that game on your phone that Joji-san from accounting recommended to you last week."

Her green lips press together in distaste, "And I suppose if I ask you how you know that you'll just ignore the question?"

"Have you gotten any big calls today or is it the same as always?"

She rolls her eyes. "I'm not surprised," she mutters before saying in a louder voice, "Just because something isn't breaking-news worthy doesn't mean it isn't important, Midoriya-san, but no, I haven't gotten any 'big calls' today."

"You know I didn't mean it like that Mochizuki-san!" He yelps, catching and pointing the pen in her direction with a dramatic pout, "I haven't gotten a big call in a while, either. I wonder what's going on?"

"The heroes probably have the situations covered."

"Really, you think so? The last news report I saw said that hero casualties have gone up in the last year or so and that fewer people are reporting criminal activity to the police for some reason."

Mochizuki-san blinks in surprise, "Wait are you serious?"

Izuku nods somberly, "It's becoming a real issue in recent weeks."

"Huh," she says and turns back to her cubicle thoughtfully. She doesn't act like it, but Izuku knows that the information will lay in wait until the topic rises again with someone else- where she'll spew it like the gossip that everyone in the office knows she not-so-secretly is.

Izuku smothers a smile and turns back to his own desk, tapping his pen on the desk in the beat of a song he heard on the radio that morning. He can't remember the name, but at the time he had liked the sound.

He checks the time again. Not enough time has passed.

He goes back to leaning in his chair and tossing his pen in the air.

It doesn't take too long for the phone in his station to ring once more. He answers the call with little fanfare, jiggling the computer mouse around to wake up his screen. An empty report template fills it after a short moment and finally, he clears his throat and says, "9-1-1 what's your emergency?"

"Hello!? A group of v-villains is taking over t-this bank!"

Oh? It's this kind of call, is it? _His favorite kind of call._

There's a faint smile on his face from his conversation with Mochizuki-san and he pushes his wheeled chair closer to his desk so that his expression is hidden from his co-workers, as are his words.

"Oh geez," he hums, leaning forward in his seat and tapping on his computer screen with his pen, "That does sound unfortunate."

"Many are wounded, please send help!" Here his attention lock on to the man's words.

"Are there any children present?" He asks, "Or pregnant women?"

"No, but they've captured Ground-Zero, The Explosion Hero!"

Ground-Zero? _Kacchan?_

Izuku's heart is pounding in his ears, it feels like he's flying, soaring through the sky so high that there's no way he'll ever hit the ground if he drops. He's giddy almost, the dark scars on his arms tingling at the words. He ducks his head, a grin of delight sharp on his lips, "Oh? Is that so?"

"Yes! Please hurry and send help, I don't know how long my phone battery will last. I'm the only one that's been able to get a signal and I don't know how much worse the situation could get!"

"Well," Izuku purrs, pen laying forgotten on the desk, "Having a captured hero _does_ make things pretty dire doesn't it?" His hands glide over the keyboard, hacking into the server and deleting the recording of the call in progress. He fiddles with the call logs until the number calling him is set to remove itself from the database. "Unfortunately there is a single problem."

Just to be thorough, he enters a randomized number and drafts the beginning of a meaningless report. Once the call ends, it will be as if there had been no call, to begin with.

It'll be a secret, between him and person calling.

"What is it?" the man asks, voice trembling and desperate and so very afraid.

"I wish I could help you out-" Izuku laughs softly into the phone, delight thrumming in his veins. "-I really do, but really, I don't _feel_ like it. Although, since you gave me such lovely news and made the rest of my night, I _do_ sincerely wish you the best of luck with the issue you're having, stranger-san."

"What do you mean!? No please, _help_ -"

Izuku ends the call with a smile.

The cursor of his mouse blinks on the false report template on his screen and in the corner, the clock tick by another minute until the numbers shape a small 4 p.m.

He takes a moment to gather his composure, wrestling down the bloodthirsty grin on his face that he sees staring back at him from the reflection of his computer- into something more… _Izuku_ -ish.

(Once upon a time, he would have felt horror at his actions, would have felt his heart flip in his chest at how scared that man sounded over the phone- would have worried for _Kacchan_ Katsuki despite the history of violence and animosity between them.

Once upon a time, he ran headfirst into danger to save Katsuki- _and weren't things much, much worse for him after that?_ \- and had his dream beaten down, spit on, trampled for doing so. He tried to be a hero, but nobody cared, nobody believed him- and he was left aching for a dream that had been beyond his reach since the moment of his birth.

Because in this world, nobody believes in a Quirkless Hero, do they?)

He logs out of his worker account and taps on the wall of Mochizuki-san's cubicle. She glares at him when she peeks out at him this time and Izuku is struck again by how odd her quirk is. There's nothing that the long yellow petals on her head can do, they're as thin as real flower petals and besides always smelling like a daisy, have no other effect on Mochizuki-san. She has the making of a living flower, without any of the power that some heroes with plant-based powers have. Just green skin, flower petal hair, and a shitty attitude.

"I'm heading out," he tells her amiably instead of voicing his thoughts aloud, "I'll see you on Thursday?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," she mutters and waves him away with a manicured hand, adding, when he's a distance that he's sure she thinks he can't hear, "Creepy kid."

Creepy? Well, that's a pretty apt observation. It seems that Mochizuki-san is a bit more insightful than she presents herself, something that he'll have to keep in mind considering what his hobbies consist of. Not that he would ever let her catch on to exactly what kind of person he is _had become_ \- at least, not without making sure that she wouldn't become a problem in the future.

He passes his co-workers on the way to his locker, waving and mouthing a 'good luck' when he notices some are in the middle of difficult calls. He shoots his mother a quick text after retrieving his belongings, waiting for her response as he exits the building.

The night is fresh, cool against his skin. It keeps him from sweating as he walks to his apartment building, whistling and spinning his house-keys around his index finger.

It's not until he's in front of his door that his mother replies, sending him an emoji that nods its head vigorously with the text "I love you, Izuku! Of course, you can come over!"

The smile on his face softens, and he lets out a soft exhale. His mother is the same as always. If anything in this world is worth saving it's his mother and those like her, not the heroes that aren't heroes at all, or the people that pretend they're without flaws.

(He knows that there's something wrong with him- has counted his sins in the dead of night; thinking of the phone calls he hangs up on without any further thought, of the people he feels don't deserve to be saved, and of the society that is rotten to its deepest core.)

"I'll be there in an hour," he says in his own message, attaching an emoji of a smiling marimo ball, "I'll help you with dinner, Kaa-san!" She replies with a happy cat emoji and Izuku chuckles before letting himself into his apartment.

He doesn't bother changing clothes, just sets his work bag on the couch and stuffs his laptop into its carrier. Whenever he visits his mother, he always ends up spending the night, so he already has a change of clothing over at her house. He pats his pocket for his wallet and phone, picking up his keys and leaving just as quickly as he had come.

It's on the train that he hears the news.

It spreads like an illness, whispers jumping from person to person- phones ringing and notifications mingling like a symphony of social responsibility. It takes only a second of eavesdropping on a pair of middle school boys nearby to piece together what causes the gasps of horror and frightened conversations.

"Did you hear? Ground Zero is in the hospital in critical condition!"

"What!? What happened?"

"It says that it has to do with that bank that was being robbed over in Hosu."

"Will he be okay? He's my brother's favorite hero!"

"I don't know dude, it has to be pretty bad for his agency to not talk to the press."

Izuku doesn't turn his head away from the window, merely ducks his head a bit lower as the words catch on his rib cage and send his heart racing in his chest. At this moment, he feels more than he's been able to as time has slogged by like he's alive for the first time in years and he's flying, giddy, drunk on the after-effects of his actions.

 _Oh, Kacchan,_ Izuku thinks in delight, eyes half-lidded and lips blooming into a radiant, wide smile. _How unlucky for you that it was me that picked up that phone._


End file.
